We recently caught up with Justin Langseth - CEO of Zoomdata. Zoomdata is a next generation data visualization system that easily allows companies and people to understand data visually in real time with a special focus on big data analytics. As such, we were keen to learn more about how Zoomdata connects to Hadoop, Stream Process billions of records and visualizes them using D3.js...

Hi Justin, firstly thank you for the interview. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Zoomdata.

Q - Visualising historical and real-time Data feels like such a new thing to the internet. Can you give us a brief history of the field and how Zoomdata fits into the picture?
A - Visualization has been around for a while but typically was for static data and done in proprietary desktop interfaces. Zoomdata makes this much more accessible for data from modern big data and hadoop based sources, for for modern devices and interfaces.

Q - Does Zoomdata use D3.js and if so, how?
A - Yes, most of our out of the box visuals in Zoomdata are powered by d3.js, and users can add their own d3.js or other Javascript-based visuals (NVD3, Vega, etc.) to the system, with Zoomdata responsible for all the data plumbing for historical and real-time data, and for user interactivity and dashboarding.

Q - At Strata2014 Santa Clara you are presenting a session named "Minority Report Meets Big Data: Touch and Interactive Big Data is Here" Who are you hoping this prevention will appeal to? And why?
A - To people who are interested in designing new experiences for humans to interact with data. We will discuss the design of the data, backend storage and systems, models, analytics, and front-ends to get closer to the “minority report” interface vision.

Q - At Strata2014 Santa Clara you are presenting a session named "Napoleon’s March to d3.js--The Future of Big, Real-time Interactive Data Visualization" Who are you hoping this prevention will appeal to? And why?
A - To people who are interested in how data visualization and analytics can be deployed to normal business people. We will focus on the organizational aspects of empowering analysts.

Q - To you, what are the ingredients of a good data visualisation? And a bad one?
A - The best is one that conveys data in a way that is intuitive and obvious to a human user, and allows for understanding of data in ways that leverage the native processing power of the human brain, which is a massively parallel pattern recognition engine with a mostly visual input. A bad one is anything that is confusing, ugly, slow, or leads users to an incorrect conclusion.

Q - What are some examples of real-world user-centric design approach that create competitive advantage by providing users and customers with a real-time data experience?
A - The whole world is becoming more real-time. Competition is becoming more intense. Ads are served online using multiparty microauctions that last only milliseconds. To be competitive in the future, you will need to be adjusting all the little knobs and levers of your business nearly continuously.

Q - What does it mean that Zoomdata is one of the first data analysis technology vendors specifically designed for Cloudera Impala and what does it mean for your customers?
A - We leverage Impala using our patented microquery sharpening approach. It means users can start to see and interact with Impala-stored data in just a few seconds or less, even at massive data scale.

Q - Tell us about speed-of-thought visual analytics and what tools you are using to construct them.
A - The front end us all Javascript based, heavily leveraging D3.js. Our backend is a scalable stream processing system that we branched from the Storm engine to make it more scalable along the dimension that is important for a multi-user data analytics system.

Q - What do you think of the future of data visualization?
A - I think we’re just getting started. We are playing with completely novel approaches to human-data interaction, including new ways to “finger paint” with data, and even virtual reality data rooms. We will be exhibiting both of these at our booth at Strata.

Editor Note - I attended Justin's presentation at Strata2014 titled "Minority Report Meets Big Data: Touch and Interactive Big Data is Here". I am excited to see more of how Justin and the Zoomdata team continue to develop and grow the "finger painting" approach to data!

Justin - Thank you so much for your time! Really enjoyed learning more about Zoomdata and the future of real-time Data Visualization and new approaches to human-data interaction. Per the Editor's note, I am really excited to continue to see this technology develop. Justin can be found online on Twitter. Zoomdata can be found online at the Zoomdata website and on Twitter.

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